Wednesday, August 9, 2017

In Robert L. Park’s book Superstition, he exposes religious beliefs, superstition, and pseudoscience as false and ridiculous because they cannot be proved by experimental scientific methods. Within each chapter it focuses on one theory and its popularity, such as the creation story, or the reasons for a tsunami or new age mysterianism, and offers scientific reasons for not believing in the abstract ideas. The book contains quite a bit of scientific, biological and chemical information which, at some times is difficult to comprehend, yet Park is able to show how all the proponents of non scientific based ideas are charlatans.

Park cannot prove the existence or non-existence of God. He also cannot explain why so many people believe in a God or cling to superstitions, but so many people do. He feels that this way thinking, that there is a God, is the result of what children hear and see from their earliest ages. All the sensory input and repetition has made us who we are. But Park is a supreme skeptic when it comes to blind belief. He says, “Science is the only way of knowing - everything else is just superstition” (Park 215).

My favorite part of the book was the discussion on “intelligent design (Park 43), because it dovetailed with Michael Shermer’s lecture given in 2010 where he describes patterns, agents, and intelligent design and he shows the power of suggestion can be full of deceit and counter the ideas of Phillip Johnson, recognized as father of the intel design movements” (Park 43), who attempts to “divert attention from the scientific emptiness of the intelligent design movement” (Park 45).

I happened to see a piece of art in the Noyes Arts Garage of Stockton University. The title of the work is Hiperborian or Septentrional Man by Maria Yony Lopez Marulanda. This composition reminded me of the class and what we have been learning because I feel that it represents the idea of man running toward the future with ideas flowing from his brain in union nature, yet the hands below the world could represent God letting go of the world, but also still having His hand on the world, and nature. Science and its growth can help both mankind and the world in which it lives by focusing more on empirical evidence, rather than unfounded beliefs.

Mediumship is the practice of certain people, referred to as mediums, mediating communication between living human beings and spirits. There are different ways of practicing mediumship, which include mental mediumship, trance mediumship, physical mediumship. direct voice, and channeling. Mental mediumship is communication of spirits with a medium by telepathy. Trance mediumship, often seen as a form of mental mediumship, is when a spirit uses the medium’s mind to communicate. Physical mediumship is defined as manipulation of energies and energy systems by spirits. In this case, the medium is used as a source of power for spirit manifestations such as loud noises, voices, materialized objects, materialized spirit bodies, or body parts. Direct voice communication is the claim that spirits speak independently of the medium, who facilitates the phenomenon rather than produces it. Channeling is when the channeler goes into a trance, or “leaves their body,” allowing a spiritual entity to borrow their body and talks through them.

Today, there are many shows out there that have to do with mediums talking to people about family members or close friends. These shows include “Long Island Medium” and “Hollywood Medium.” Both shows include a medium having several readings with many different people.

Tuesday, August 8, 2017

In this the book called Why People
Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusion of Our
time by Michael Shermer talks about how people things because they can, or they
have the “intelligence” to. Shermer talks about the beliefs and hopes that most
people share. “Most of us harbor a type of faith in science, and a confidence
that somehow science will solve our major problems.” (Shermer, 7) We always
rely on scientist to fix our problems. We also believe that if something is
from science, it must be true. Which is no always true.

He talks about how thinking can go wrong. Such
as, rumors not being equal to reality. Which is true, rumors are untrue stories
that have been told and get spread to person to person until someone believes
them. Using harsh words such as “rape, cancer, evil, communist.” (Shermer, 55)
It has an easier way of sticking into people’s mind if the story is used with
these kinds of words. “Religious faith depends on social, psychological and
emotional factors that have little or nothing to do with probabilities,
evidence and logic.” Said Shermer. I believe that this quote is true because so
many people base their religious believe on other people. Such as those who believe
in the bible. They believe that there should be no color people in the world.
There should not be any kind of LGBT action anywhere.

My favorite part of the book that I
found interesting was when he talked about the Holocaust. He talks about how there
a people who deny that it had happened. Some people say that teaching the
Holocaust is child abuse. I believe that they are wrong. In my opinion, all education
communities should have a program for The Holocaust. This is important because
we need to know what brainwashing is and not to repeat history when Donald
Trump decides to take over the world. I see a lot of similarities when it
comes to Hitler and Donald Trump. Even after Trump the Holocaust needs to be
taught for many years. It also teaches kids that they can’t discriminate
others, or harm another human being because of their religion, or even color.

Believeing in Magic, The Psychology
of Superstition by Stuart A Vyse is a booked based on all aspects of
superstition. In the beginning of the book it talks about what superstition is
and how it relates in today’s society. It gives a little something for almost
everyone to relate to, in order to draw one into the book. In this book Mr. Vyse
mentions many different experiments. For example one is Skinners pigeon
experiment and how the pigeon began performing rituals before receiving food.

Nearing the
end of the book Vyse talks about if one grows up being superstitious. He also
goes on and talks about the relationships between being superstitious and having
a mental disorder. Concluding the book is the topic of expanding ones knowledge
on scientist and science as a whole, having more appreciation for them.

When it
comes to my favorite part of the book I could not pick just one topic because for
me the two go together. The two topics are superstition in sports and growing
up superstitious. When I was little up until now, when it comes to playing
sports or watching the Mets or Jets play I would have to wear a certain attire.
The Jets and Mets played a huge part of my childhood.

My
friends and I when we were little were always outside doing something. There
were trails behind my house and we would ride through them to get to the other
neighborhood to play football. When it got dark out we all rode in the same position
in line through the trails and would all make sure we were calling out noises
to scare whatever it was in the woods away. We were not afraid of the Jersey devil
per say but definitely the unknown as a whole.

(before a Jets game with my jersey on ..Jets and Mets posters in background)

(Another example of how big of a role they play .. my older brothers grave)

Many people truly believed that the world would end December 21, 2012. There were people who went to extremes on preparing for the world to end. There were people paying one thousand dollars to attend a two day party in a bunker used by the civil war. Also, people were preparing for safety from the world ending by supplying underground bunkers with food, medicine and necessities needed to survive past the end of the world. While many people took precautions for the end of the world, other people joked around about it.

James Randi, a well known magician and escape artist, published the book Flim-Flam! in 1980. The pseudoscience skeptic poured all of his knowledge and past encounters into debunking and exposing widespread deceptions, commonly promoted by the media. A common theme Randi follows is confirmation bias; the tendency to search for and find confirming evidence for a belief while overlooking counter examples. Randi's efforts to bring to light the poor research done by scientists and their foolish rationalizations are well documented and compelling. Randi works to disprove astrology by explaining how vast the universe is. He states that many people are born at the same time but bear different personalities, giving rise to the suspicion of horoscopes. His efforts to uncover deceit include analysis of how two young girls who posed with faeries and gnomes tricked thousands with their camera, the mystery of the Bermuda triangle, an ex-hotel managers claims of aliens visiting earth and leaving artifacts, and how human beings will to believe does not stop at professionals.

James Randi Debunks an Astrologer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r70HsEvNRck

The most interesting part of this book, I found, was Randi's lengthy discussion of astrology and UFO's. He explains that there is an infinite amount of stars in the universe and the distance between us and them is so vast that they could not even be there anymore. So, the position of the sun in a set of stars that could possibly not even be there anymore means close to nothing. Of course I am talking about horoscopes. They describe how a group of people, born within a set of about 30 days, have the same personality. Randi begins to question the personality of twins saying that, according to astrologists, twins should have the exact same personality. However, instead of realizing their mistake, astrologists turn up an explanation for the discrepancy. I can say with first hand experience that I do not have the exact same or even a similar personality to my twin sister. This is another example of confirmation bias.

Reports of UFO sightings are not uncommon to anyone living in the United States, but how do we know if they are real or not? James Randi performed a small experiment in which he went on a radio show and told of his recent experience of seeing a triangular shaped UFO in the sky. He gave no specific details and of course was lying. Within seconds the radio station was receiving dozens of calls of people seeing the exact same thing. By the end, the people had agreed on the exact number of triangular air crafts, along with the specific location, altitude, and direction the craft was traveling. Reading this, I realized how many of the thousands of reports of UFO's every year are more than likely fake. However, believers will still claim the definitely saw something in the air that night. Quite like every other chapter in his book, Randi does an excellent job of making the reader aware of peoples stubbornness towards their passion. For reasons unknown to me, communities continue to believe in unfounded concepts and theories, even more than 30 years after the publication of James Randi's book debunking their favorites stories.

On Halloween in 1938 Orson Welles told a story over his
broadcasting station of an alien invasion in NJ called the war of the worlds.
Obviously, this man was clearly delusional or in another state of mind. His
whole broadcast included him telling the world about how there are aliens that
no one knew about. Over 1.2 million people were impacted by what Orson said.
Apparently, they took a poll and these people that re frightened were just a
mass delusion of what he thought that broadcast had done to the people.

Another Mass Delusion we have in our lecture is the Salem
witch trials which was located in Massachusetts where people believed they
could be cursed by a witch so they tortured and imprisoned many people in the
area. Clearly very delusional situation unless you believe that these people
were actually cursed which I do not believe.

There are three types of learning
styles visual, kinesthetic and Auditory learning. When it comes to hands on
learning I believe that it comes best to me. Being able to feel everything and
the way it works seems easier. For example, I own my own business and
everything is basically hands on but I could watch how to put a fence in but
still not understand the real concept. The way to really feel and learn is to
go out and experience it hands on. Your brain will learn what to do and what
not to when it comes to learning.

That doesn’t always go for everyone
though I believe that a lot of people especially students learn better with
Auditory learning and actually watching how it’s done. In the classroom when
the professor lectures maybe they get a better grasp on the way that they learn
the certain material. For visual learners, basically explained in football
where you have to study the playbook some of the players have trouble studying
them because they can’t remember what they saw. I want to get some comments
below on what kind of learner you guys are.

We all lived life believing that we were putting 100% effort
towards everything we do our brain is only working a fraction of what it could
be doing. 10% of our brain is all the normal human being uses but why is that a
big deal. Would you believe that we can have telepathic abilities along with
other specific abilities? Meaning if our brains were in 100% function could it
be possible to hear something from someone without them saying it. Reading
minds is basically what I’m getting at or otherwise known as quantum
entanglement.

Some children claim that they remember their past life. Even some adults are able to recall events and details from a familiar yet very distant past life of theirs. Researchers at the University of Virginia have been seeking evidence to prove reincarnation. However, there is much argument on whether or not the child is experiencing false memories due to over active imagination or trauma or brain tumors.

My parents told me that when I was a little girl I used to ask for "my other parents" and that I would say things like "my other dad didn't smoke" or something like that. I don't remember doing this and I have no memories of any other parents. But who knows? Maybe as a child I remembered a life I already had? Studies show that children are able to see things that adults cannot.

Why People Believe in Weird Things is a book written
by a known skeptic named Michael Shermer. This book gives readers a whole new
perspective on what makes people believers and what makes people skeptics. This
book is a series of stories written by believers and he proves them
differently. His focus is why people believe in the existence of things that
have no evidence of this existence or that there is evidence that contradicts
their beliefs.

Shermer describes
this as an error of thinking. He names two errors, Type 1 error which is
believing in a falsehood and Type 2 error which is what leads to rejecting
truths. Throughout the book he gives his theory on why intelligent people are
more susceptible to “crazy” beliefs. He also gives examples as to why we should
not believe but also why we believe and that it is normal for these “errors” to
occur.

One of my favorite
parts was a chapter towards the end of the book about why people believe that
the Holocaust never happened. It’s my favorite part because it shocks me to
learn that there are people out there who believe that the Holocaust never
happened, that 6 million Jews did not die from torture, crucial labor, gas
chambers and more. Shermer mentioned why people were deniers and one belief
that stood out to me was they believed that the Holocaust was a myth invented
by Allies. These deniers all ignore the hard evidence thrown their way because
they have it in their heads that it never happened and they refuse to believe
otherwise. A heuristic that this example fits well with is confirmation bias.
People believe some kind of information given to them rather than collecting
more to prove the case. If they collected more information than it would be
easier for them to come to the realization of the truth rather than their own
beliefs.

This example and
this whole book relate to the heuristic of confirmation bias along with almost
all of the elements of thought such as information, point of view, assumptions
and interpretation. Overall, I enjoyed this book and loved the way he disproved
common beliefs and beliefs that I had no idea people believed in such as the
Holocaust never existing. Below is a video of why people deny the Holocaust and
who the deniers are:

Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow is a book explores the two halves of a persons mind and how they think. The book is a culmination of Kahneman's past work and experiences with his studies and work with his colleagues, a major one being his friend and partner Amos who worked with him on many experiments and is a huge part of the book. The book itself is divided into five sections and is very organized and interactive. The book is constantly making you think and has you do tasks and thinking games that relate to what is being taught in that chapter. I found myself pleasantly surprised when I would try to solve a puzzle and afterwards read how Kahneman would describe all the feelings I was going through while solving the puzzle, how my eyes dilated, my heart rate speeding up, how I made a bit of a face, and how I most likely got the question wrong due to the fast thinking part of my brain making a mistake. which brings us back to the two halves of our brain which is the main focus of the book.

Dubbed system 1 (thinking fast) and system 2 (thinking slow), these two systems dictate how we react to certain situations and problems and how we interact and live in our day to day life. System 1 is the passive system that we use naturally and without any effort, such as answering simple questions such as 2 + 2, walking and talking, naming the capital of France, reading facial expressions, and making assumptions. System 2 is the slow thinking part of your mind that requires effort, this system helps you with complicated situations such as answering what 17 X 24 is, driving in rough weather, and hard tasks such as the Add-1 and Add-3 challenges.

An example of system 2 in motion would be this video in which the watcher are given the task of counting how passes the white players make with the basketball. During the task, a person dressed as a Guerrilla will walk in the middle of the group for a few seconds and walk out. Chances are that you were so focused on the task that you never saw the Guerrilla. System 2 requires a lot of effort and will likely shut out everything that has nothing to do with the task, making you "blind". A problem with system 2 is that it is lazy and does not work passively and often goes off the assumptions made by system 1, such as the Ball and Bat test. A ball and bat cost $1.10 and the bat costs one dollar more than the ball, how much money is the ball? Most people make the mistake of saying 10 cents for the ball when the right answer is 5 cents. Your system 1 came up with an answer and instead of challenging it, your system 2 endorsed even though it should have picked up the mistake immediately. This book is constantly making your mind work while also discovering how it is working.

One of my favorite parts of the book involves conjunction fallacy, which is when a person believes a conjunction of two events is more likely than a single event. In chapter 15, Kahneman and Amos came up with an experiment in which they made up a women named Linda who they described as a bright women who is concerned for social justice and is an active feminist. The experiment gave a list of outcomes for Linda such as being a teacher, a social worker, an active feminist, a bank teller, and a bank teller who is a feminist. Most people picked the feminist bank teller as more likely outcome than bank teller or feminist. The truth is that bank teller or feminist are more probable than a feminist bank teller as they are only one event while the other is two events. Kahneman and Amos coined the phrase conjunction fallacy as a result of this experiment. People tried to represent their answer to the description of Linda even though it was less probable. This happens all the time in day to day life were people choose answers that make sense rather than answers that are mathematically right. I really liked this experiment as it is something that I am guilty of doing as well, I even initially made the same mistake in the Linda experiment when reading it. I find myself making this mistake a lot of times as I often choose answers or make assumptions base on what makes more sense rather than what is truly right, even when I know something is wrong I still consider it as it makes the most sense in my head. Experiments like this make me realize how simply the wording of a question or a description of a person can radically change the way we think and answer. This book is chalk full of great experiments like this and I'm really glad I chose this book to read as learning about how the mind works is also helping me understand how I work as well.

Pseudoscience and the Paranormal

The popular media and self-help industry is rife with extraordinary claims. Alien experimentation, psychic detectives, mediums, ESP, extreme therapies and miracle products are all examples of how pseudoscience and the paranormal have become prevalent, popular and even an extremely lucrative enterprise. The majority of these examples defy the basic laws of science, logic and common sense yet they appeal to a large number of people. Here we will use science, specifically a psychological perspective to explore these popular theories and claims, and learn to think critically in order to be able to constructively evaluate them.